This started as a comment on another blog, but I thought I would expand it here and not hog his blog with my thoughts.

I think more progressive Christians should get involved in this debate. We can't let the conservative Evangelicals have a monopoly on the "Christian voice" in this or any other issue. The world needs to know that there are plenty of Christians who oppose the ideas of creationism and the logic of teaching it to our children. I don't want my child to experience that warped view of God and be taught things that they will spend their life working to unlearn.

I feel that creation and evolution are NOT 2 sides of the same coin. Teaching creation in schools as an opposition to evolution paints the picture that the bible is in opposition to science.
If schools are going to be in the business of teaching how to interpret the bible by discussing a literal interpretation of Genesis as an option for reading it, then they should also teach a non-literal approach to interpreting scripture as well as a complete approach systematic theology, narrative theology, liberation theology, etc. Teaching about evolution is NOT the same thing. This is outside the discussion of evolution as a creative mechanism. People get the impression that there is only one option when it comes to interpretation of the Bible and you must either accept it as literal divine dictation or reject as meaningless. Thank God there is another option!

The other problem with adding a creationism course to school curriculum is the question of which creation story will they tell? There are as many different creation stories as there are cultures through the history of mankind. I think it would be interesting to have world religion courses in lower levels of education, but I'm not sure I really want to open that Pandora's box. (As I type that I'm wondering what grade I was in when I was first taught the story of Pandora's box.....hmmmm).

I suspect that we never thought people would be exposed to the many cultures of the world at such an early age, so we decided to save world religion courses for secondary education. For our parents and grandparents that was probably about the time they first learned much about the world beyond their own communities. For our children that is going to be a much younger age. For me the choice is either to have no religion in schools or a comprehensive set of courses in all religions. It seems that the best choice would be no religion and I'm sure that is the exact train of thought that led to the current legal rulings that we live with now. I see no reason to change it.